BSH Home Appliances was looking to optimize its practices when it began to build two new production facilities in New Bern, N.C. At the top of the list was reducing the cost of protecting its home appliances from damage during storage and shipping. The use of an automated system known as a stretch hood now saves BSH as much as 30 to 40% on its film cost while ensuring products are adequately protected.

The stretch-hood machine wraps each appliance with a protective film that can be applied either for five-sided protection or as a tubular sleeve around the appliance with an open top and bottom.

The appliances, which already have cardboard corner protectors in place, enter the machine on a short conveyor. Sensors determine the height of the appliance and feed the information to controls that determine the proper length of the film tube needed to wrap the item. The film is then stretched horizontally and drawn down over the appliance, creating a taut protective film envelope. Up to 180 loads can be wrapped each hour.

The stretch-hood unit is equipped with a multi-stretch system that assures an exact, fully controlled positioning of the stretch film.

The ability to accommodate two different types of film at one time allows the stretch-hood unit to handle a variety of loads. Downtime is eliminated with a standby film roll that replaces an empty roll during a normal change over.

In addition to the savings from the cost of film, BSH has also seen several advantages to using the stretch hood over shrinkwrap. Energy costs are reduced as the need for heat has been eliminated. In addition, the film is more durable than shrinkwrap because it doesn't have the "hot spots" or weakened areas. The result has been less re-wrapping and fewer layers needed to provide adequate protection.

BSH has also seen a reduction of film material usage and related costs. Using the stretch-hood method, the film circumference is actually smaller than the footprint of the product. Compared with the shrinkwrap method, where the system shrinks a bigger film circumference back to the product, BSH saves up to 15% of film material costs.

Damage to products has also declined since implementing the stretch hood. BSH found that the reason was due to a "simple psychological effect." Because forklift operators handling the units can actually see through the packaging film, the operators handle these products with much more care.